Housing crunch poses challenge for Mayor Ed Lee

Published 4:13 pm, Saturday, December 28, 2013

Mayor Ed Lee and California Labor Secretary Marty Morgenstern speak about the BART strike planned for Monday at a press conference in San Francisco, Calif., Friday, August 2, 2013.

Mayor Ed Lee and California Labor Secretary Marty Morgenstern speak about the BART strike planned for Monday at a press conference in San Francisco, Calif., Friday, August 2, 2013.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Housing crunch poses challenge for Mayor Ed Lee

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With the economy showing no signs of slowing, and with more and more people moving to San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee is finding himself walking a housing tightrope that is getting higher and higher every day.

"It's no longer about the teacher who can't afford to live in the city. It's about the associate at a law firm who makes over $100,000 a year not being able to stay here," said political consultant Eric Jaye.

Jaye worked on the campaigns of both former Mayors Gavin Newsomand Willie Brown, and is no stranger to the town's shifting political winds and voter worries over being "priced out of the city."

Neither is the mayor, which is one reason he is moving to put affordable housing for the middle class at the top of his agenda in the coming year.

The question is, what can he really do about it?

There are an estimated 40,000 units of new housing in the city's planning pipeline, about 10,000 of which have been set aside for families making less than $70,000 a year.

But where is the program for families that make more than $70,000?

"We do well with housing high-income people and we do better than most places in terms of building low-income housing, but the middle class gets squeezed," said Supervisor Scott Wiener.

"It's just not something that we have historically paid attention to," Lee said. "We thought middle-income people would take care of themselves."

Lee had hoped that the 12,000 homes being built at the old Hunters Point Shipyard would have been ready for the market by now, but construction is going slower than expected.

A bigger challenge facing the mayor is uncovering how the city can legally use public money or public land to essentially underwrite market-rate housing.

"There has to be" a way, Lee said. "I mean, if we are going to keep the middle class we have to come up with solutions."

One idea Lee will be putting forward is to build on unused city, community college and public utility land that is scattered around the city.

Plus, said city Planning Director John Rahaim, "we have to look at ways to make our process more efficient - lower the cost of land, lower other costs so that developers can bring in projects that are more affordable. And we have to look at potentially subsidizing middle-income housing as well."

In the meantime, Lee has to do something if he wants to ward off the backlash at the ballot box that hit former Mayor Willie Brown during the dot.com boom.

"You can already see the moves," said political consultant Jaye. "Look at how he publicly pivoted after voters said 'no' to the luxury condos at 8 Washington. That is something Brown would never have done."

Another move: Lee's call to reform Ellis Act eviction laws - something that would have been a radical idea just a couple of years back.

"Voters understand that their leaders can't get it all done," Jaye said. "But what they want is the acknowledgement that there is a problem and that at least you are trying to come up with a plan," Jaye said

And that may be about the best Lee can do at this point.

Arena shuffle: Sources tell us that the Golden State Warriors are looking at reworking their plans for the luxury hotel and condo high-rise that will accompany their waterfront arena deal.

The thinking appears to be that the hotel and condos might be a hard sell if the deal goes on the ballot.

On the other hand, boosters are breathing a sigh of relief over the results of a recent KPIX-Survey USA poll of 500 San Francisco residents. The poll showed that 64 percent of those surveyed support the idea of a waterfront arena, a 5 percent uptick in support since March.

It's also interesting to note that transportation - i.e gridlock on the Embarcadero - came in fourth, when voters were asked to list their biggest concern about the project. Only 17 percent said traffic would be a problem.

The main concern, at 27 percent, was the arena's effect on open space and small businesses in the area.

So long Stick: No event would be complete without at least a couple of scams and screamers, and the final Monday Night Football game at Candlestick was no exception.

In one instance, a group of about 15 gangbangers tried to get into the game using photocopied tickets. They didn't get far. Not only were the forgeries a joke, but the guys using them were all known to the cops, including the guy holding the ticket that they all had copied.

Then there was the concession worker who tried to make off with about $8,000 in cash only to be nabbed in the parking lot (with the cash in a bag under his car) by Bayview Officers Bryan Schaffer and Rick Valdez.

And there was the guy who was caught trying to unbolt a row of seats.

Our favorite take of the night, however, was the woman who, when seeing the cops escort her friend out of the park, shouted: "Oh come on, he's only really, really drunk!"

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